


Gaius Cornelius Chrestus, Initiate

by PlinytheYounger



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Animal Death, Gen, Religion, Roman AU, Roman Religion, Self-Harm, Slavery, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlinytheYounger/pseuds/PlinytheYounger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Roman AU, starring Valjean and the Bishop of Digne, somewhat altered by circumstance. Prompt & encouragement from voksen!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gaius Cornelius Chrestus, Initiate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voksen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/gifts).



“Ah, you err too gravely,” the Galla said,  
“if you’ll arrest a man for rendering help to me,  
Behold upon the body of this bull  
the three white hairs below the forehead;  
the cursed, unlucky cast of its hind legs  
the open signs of its impurity. This animal  
worthless for sacrifice, he took to market,  
to rid our ecstasies of anything profane.  
Maglorius, our archigallus, can agree -  
his citizenship gives credence to his word.  
For this holy and dutiful friend of Cybele,  
I have a better beast prepared; soon, my friend,  
you shall see noon at the zenith of the night!”

“No need, good lady,” the legionary said,  
“the Mother saved my child from sickness,  
I’m sure of it, rewarded all my offerings  
and touched her brow with fragrant hands.  
All health to the Emperor and to you all!  
I’d fill your begging bowl with my wages,  
a thousand times over for such recompense.”

There dumbstruck stood Chrestus, “Useful”,  
Gaius Cornelius Chrestus. Who would have been  
Chrestus again, and Chrestus branded,  
if his theft had been revealed to his old master  
after nineteen years his patron. Back then to the mill  
back to the labour of the farm in chains…  
and his scant coins of a _peculium_ scattered  
while he was whipped for his ingratitude  
to a clement, good man, who, though sorely tried  
by each of his insolent attempts to run away,  
had never had him put to death.

He looked upon the good votary of Cybele,  
despised and treasured, the keeper of imperial cult,  
with scarlet fillets in her curling hair,  
and perfumed arms, and bracelets made of jet,  
and delicate golden robes. “You cannot truly mean,”  
he said, “to sacrifice a bull for me? Your treasury  
is surely for a public offering; the emperor’s health  
the city’s, that of some great man…not this thief.  
I am a wretch! Can you really think…?”

“For nine days,” she said, “Attis has been dead  
and I have fasted. And on the very Day of Blood  
you’ve come in desperation, out of your senses —  
to men like this the goddess surely speaks  
to humble men. Her frenzy is wise; it heals.  
Attis dies; and Attis lives; and you shall drink  
from the cymbal, eat from the holy drum,  
and be reborn.” And round her in a throng  
priestesses; priests at once; as countless  
as the Pleiades in their shining gowns,  
between male and female, life and death  
wounded, each one, for love, and blessed.

And Chrestus marvelled: remembering the bite  
of scourges when he brought the harvest in  
to see a man smile at each touch of the whip  
and dance in blood, and speed the drums,  
and dreamily put the knife to human flesh,  
some all unmanned, some only following.  
But here each worshipper was free to choose  
and put themselves to tests of bravery,  
and saw the visions they could not describe, joy  
beyond joy. This the mirror of his servitude:  
made all unlike by liberty. With each stroke  
of the tambourine he found that he forgot  
himself: not for Chrestus the speaking tool,  
not for the dumb beast strong enough to plow,  
but for a living human caught as hard by this  
as any other; for a starry portion  
of an infinite firmament; for the high note  
of the dulcimer playing louder, ever louder,  
for the abyss of grief, for its hope of reversal…

And later, veiled and solemn, the Gallus  
stunned to unconsciousness her sacrifice:  
so cleanly and so quickly cut his throat  
that in one gasp the bull’s soul flooded out  
leaving his great head to loll upon the grate  
and Chrestus parched by the Sicilian sun  
for nineteen years, bowed his head, drenched  
by their generosity. Across his old life  
washed the sacred blood of Attis’ bull:  
he thought: _I have not been fortunate,_  
 _nor dutiful to custom, nor reverent to the gods,_  
 _who I thought forgetful of my sufferings…_  
 _I have not healed!_

And with that sharp determination,  
bathed; dressed; set out. And took her name  
and cognomen. The Gallus’ adopted son  
whose life was now his own.

**Author's Note:**

> What I've used for the imaginative reconstruction of Cybele's cult here is the information from the excellent book "In Search Of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele"
> 
> Based on sources:  
> 1\. A bull sacrifice of some kind (taurobolium) was practised by the cult of Cybele and was usually for very prominent/wealthy individuals or for the public good, as described here. The bull's blood falling on the initiate comes from a 4th century Christian account, which was polemical and hostile - Prudentius (Crowns of Martyrdom 10.1011-50). It's epigraphically attested, but private tauroboliums are definitely later than the 1st century AD.  
> 2\. Drinking from the cymbal and eating from the drum as an initiate comes from Clement of Alexandria, another Christian source.  
> 3\. The priesthood of Cybele are cited in several Roman sources (Catullus, Lucian, Pliny at least) as voluntarily castrating themselves; they dressed and presented themselves in a female fashion, and were sometimes referred to as "gallae" in the sources; legally, they were considered a "third gender". That people chose very deliberately to do this, full-time and permanently, may well have been because they were, in fact, women, although genderfluid/third gender/further readings are possible - I've tried both to go for as contemporary a view as is possible to try for and not to make a terrible depiction of gender identity here, so let me know if I've failed at either.  
> 4\. The galli/gallae also did, in fact, beg during some days of the year, and receive money  
> 5\. That Chrestus (which I picked as a very common slave name - it does mean "useful") could be reduced to slavery again I got from the Dictionary of Greek & Roman Antiquities - "By a Constitutio or Senatusconsultum of Claudius (Sueton. Claud. 25) a freedman who misconducted himself towards his patron, was reduced to his former state of slavery."  
> 6\. The Day of Blood is March 24! Public scourging and whipping in Rome! SO I GUESS THIS IS SET THERE.  
> 7\. A 'peculium' is a sort of "pocket money"; it's money that a slave is *allowed* to consider his, but doesn't really belong to him, because he can't own property  
> 8\. Working at the mill, or in chains on an "ergastulum" (a private prison attached to a farm) are attested punishments for slaves; Sicily was one of the places in the empire where agricultural slavery was widespread.  
> 9\. The Gallus' dress is based on the person found buried in the 4th century in Catterick, North Yorkshire, identified as a gallus.  
> 10\. Cybele was a healing goddess and a particular protector of children.


End file.
